55 days of BtVS: Day 11

It took a while. Again.I blame it on the stress I had with my son's broken leg, many, many hours at the hospital for re-casting, plural, making new x-ray photographs again, and again, and in the end having surgery after all. All I could focus on beside that and still caring for my other kids, and house keeping, and work at school, was making pretty pictures from pretty people.But here it is, the next day of 55 days:

Day 11: Least favorite male character

Like every ‘least favorite’, this isn’t easy; there aren’t many things and characters that I don’t like, but that are still important to the show. Of course there’s Parker, and I could argue that he’s pretty important in what he and his behavior do to Buffy, but that still feels like kind of a cop out.

So I pick the one guy I truly don’t like at all – Warren.

When Warren first appeared, I still felt compassion for him. Yes, he built himself a creepy sex bot, but he did it because he felt lonely, and what he wanted from her was feeling loved, right? And at least he realized that she in no way could replace a real person.

But then he did this thing with just leaving her behind, not even giving it any thought that if he succeeded in making her so alive-like, she maybe was capable of feeling abandoned. Hid from her even when he saw how desperately she searched for him, instead of giving her some peace of mind, or, you know, switch her off, and even after getting it he still didn't show any remorse. My sympathy made a 180 and turned into disgust instantly (which happens rarely, I almost always still find something redeemable in people!), and I cheered Katrina on when she left him.

When he reappeared in season 6, it became clear pretty quickly that his behavior wasn’t just a slip, and here's why:

Over the course of the season he displays a lot of criminal energy to achieve his goals, and doesn’t shy away from capital offense either, the museum robbery being one of them, but culminating of course at first in the intension to rape and then the manslaughter of Katrina.

On the surface still the funny guy and certainly highly intelligent, admired for this and his strength by Andrew till the end, he soon shows that he’s at the core manipulative and deeply selfish, and goes all out to get what he wants, stopping at nothing, having no qualms about throwing his friends under the bus at the first opportunity. Basically he shows almost every trait typical for psychopaths, such as high self-confidence paired with lack of conscience and empathy, charming on the outside, use of cruelty to gain empowerment, defiance of authority; he’s eloquent as a speaker which he uses to manipulate people.

That's how he seduces both Andrew and Jonathan to do nasty and even illegal things, even though neither of them is stupid or in any way evil. But for a while they bath in his attention, not realizing what he really needs them for.

It's no coincidence that The First chooses Warren to further entice Andrew to do its bidding, going even so far to have him kill his only friend Jonathan. Besides Andrew being an easy target, it's still the huge influence Warren has on him and his capabilty of being convincing.

Even though watching Warren is kind of thrilling and therefore enjoyable, I really, really don't like him. I’m firmly against death penalty. But when Willow kills him I can’t help but cheer (well, the flaying wasn’t necessary, I guess…).

Actually ‘don’t like’ isn’t a strong enough expression for Warren. He scares me, much more than any monster could, because people like him exist in reality.